What is revegetation?
Revegetation involves introducing native plants, either through planting or direct seeding, into an ecosystem that is too damaged to regenerate naturally. We like to think of it as putting local plants back where they once were!
The idea behind revegetation is to re-establish a section of bushland to:
- help control erosion and stabilise soils
- improve the biodiversity values of a site (eg. less weeds, a greater amount and variety of native plants)
- provide new habitat for wildlife
- link separate areas of wildlife habitat
Revegetation is a relatively quick way to rehabilitate a site that may take a long time to regenerate naturally or may not regenerate at all (it is too damaged from an environmental opint of view). However, revegetation is a long-term prospect – it can take 3-5 years for plants to get established. Be patient!
Revegetation methods
The two most common ways to revegetate are direct seeding and planting seedlings.
Direct seeding is a fast and cheap way to revegetate over large areas. It is commonly used to restore large, long cleared highly modified environments (eg. abandoned farming land or mine sites) where little native vegetation remains, and the soil seed bank is impoverished or non-existent. It requires special machinery and seedlings can take a long time to grow.
A quicker and easier revegetation method on smaller sites is to plant seedlings. Click here to learn more about growing your own plants.
You may also wish to purchase some additional native plant seedlings. Seedling purchased from a specialist nursery are known as “tubestock”. Click here for an interactive list of native plant nurseries in Victoria where you can source tubestock. Greening Australia also has a list of native plant nurseries in Greater Melbourne (click here) and regional Victoria (click here).
Please get in touch if you would like help ordering your tubestock.
Revegetation Design
We want to design our revegetation project to improve the biodiversity values of the site. This means that the plant species that we select are either based on intact vegetation communities in the local region (known as an Ecological Vegetation Class (EVC), pre-European vegetation (known as a pre-European EVC) and/or any existing areas of vegetation that you are connecting to.
This means that you should include:
- indigenous plants that would have occurred naturally on the site (“local provenance”). These plants are suited to the local conditions, have a lower likelihood of becoming ‘weedy’ and provide habitat for local wildlife.
- trees, shrubs, herbaceous plants and grasses of different types and heights (diversity) with a range of different roles (function eg. prickly shrubs for small bird habitat, plants with berries for fruit-eating birds, grasses for small lizard and insect habitat, food for seed-eating birds)
- lots of different plant species – this should maximise the diversity of wildlife habitats. Using a mix of local, native plants attracts insects that naturally feed off these plants, which then supports birds and other larger wildlife as well
- patchy design – plants should be in groups rather than rows (more natural). If possible, choose a site that is near (or connected to) other plantings or remnant vegetation, or natural features like streams or rocks – your site can help wildlife move between these areas.
